This invention generally relates to a method for analyzing product information and more particularly, to a method which utilizes a multi-dimensional database or xe2x80x9cdata cubexe2x80x9d to organize and analyze various types of information or data relating to automotive vehicles.
A wide variety of information is available and generated for products such as automotive vehicles. For example and without limitation, a large amount of data is available relating to the quality and cost of such products and to consumer concerns and desires. Companies that manufacture products such as vehicles typically gather, organize, examine and analyze information relating to every aspect of their business in order to determine and improve the quality of their manufactured products or vehicles, cut costs, address customer concerns, and provide innovations and features which customers desire. Due to the relatively large amount and variety of data that is available for products such as vehicles, it is relatively difficult to organize and analyze this data in an efficient and concise manner. Without the proper and efficient organization and analysis, the potential benefits and insight offered by this vehicle information cannot be realized.
Conventional data analysis methods, databases and systems, which are utilized by companies to analyze data, are relatively slow and inefficient. Particularly, current information systems and methods require users of such systems to learn a separate application (e.g., a separate software platform) for each source of data analyzed. For example and without limitation, vehicle warranty data, customer satisfaction data, customer concerns data, competitor data, and other data is typically generated by and available through separate sources, thereby requiring a user of this data to learn various applications or platforms to analyze each type of data. This further prevents the user from accessing and comparing these different types of data concurrently. Additionally, users of these prior methods and systems must typically import the data into other software to display the results in a graphical format (e.g., charts, graphs). Moreover, these prior systems require users to prepare and submit pre-defined queries to the resident databases prior to receiving information which can be analyzed. Due to these limitations, these present methods and systems require a user to develop or know which queries to submit and the expected results of these queries before submitting the queries. Furthermore, a user must procedurally chart the query results to obtain analysis that will determine xe2x80x9cfollow-upxe2x80x9d queries. For these reasons, the information analysis that is performed using these prior methods and systems is unduly burdensome, inefficient and time consuming. As a result, the ability for companies to properly and efficiently provide improved quality and innovation of their products or vehicles is significantly limited.
There is therefore a need for a method for analyzing product information which overcomes the limitations of prior methods and systems and which allows the data from various sources to be efficiently integrated, organized, analyzed and displayed to a user in a concise and unambiguous manner.
It is a first object of the invention to provide a method for analyzing product information which overcomes the limitations of prior methods and systems and which allows the data to be to be analyzed, organized and accessed in an efficient manner.
It is a second object of the invention to provide a method for analyzing product information which integrates data generated from various sources into a single data system or data cubes and which allows all of the data to be concurrently accessed, searched and displayed in a simple and unambiguous manner.
It is a third object of the invention to provide a method for analyzing product information which utilizes a multi-dimensional database to allow a user to access different types of data in various user-selected formats.
It is a fourth object of the invention to provide a method for analyzing product information which provides a company with improved and more timely access to relevant product quality information relative to prior methods and systems.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, a method is provided for analyzing vehicle data. The method includes the steps of obtaining the vehicle data from a plurality of sources; formatting the obtained vehicle data; integrating the formatted vehicle data within a single data system having at least one data cube; selectively accessing portions of the vehicle data over a computer network, the accessed portions corresponding to a plurality of user selected attributes; and selectively displaying the accessed portions of the vehicle data in a unique one of a plurality of user-selectable formats.
These and other objects, aspects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a consideration of the following specification and the attached drawings.